Vet fails to overturn cruelty charges
A FORMER West Yorkshire vet and his ex-girlfriend have failed in a legal bid to overturn animal cruelty convictions they received following the discovery of more than 30 dogs and cats living in squalid conditions at his surgery.
Gary Samuel, 51, and his former partner Rochelle McEwan, 31, were both given 12-week suspended prison sentences in 2016 after a district judge found them guilty of causing unnecessary suffering and failing to provide a suitable environment for the dogs and cats that were kept at Town Street, Armley, Leeds.
The judge heard details of how 12 severely underweight huskytype dogs were being kept in cages in a faeces-covered cellar at the surgery.
Samuel, of Weston Road, Enfield, and McEwan, of Stonecliffe Close, Leeds, launched an appeal earlier this year in front of a judge and two magistrates at Bradford Crown Court in an attempt to overturn the convictions.
During an 11-day hearing, Recorder Jamie Hill QC and his colleagues heard detailed evidence from expert witnesses about the state of the animals at the surgery. And yesterday he told Samuel and McEwan that their appeals were being dismissed in respect of five of the six charges they had faced.
Their appeal was upheld in respect of a Siamese cat which had to be put down, because the pathological evidence relating to its cause of death was unclear.
The judge also said it had been decided that the terms of the indefinite bans on keeping animals previously imposed on the pair should be changed so that they covered a period of three years each.
Recorder Hill said: “Dr Samuel was the owner of the premises and we are entirely satisfied that he had control over what happened within them.”
He also said the offending had taken place in “peculiar circumstances” and as a result of domestic strife rather than two people setting out to be deliberately cruel to animals.
The court heard that Samuel’s business was on the brink of bankruptcy and he was now claiming jobseeker’s allowance while McEwan was also on benefits.